The Strange Tail Of Oddzilla: Something For Everyone

A book’s voice is softer than a whisper.  It can also resonate in your head, bouncing around, converted into thoughts and word paintings.  It might even sculpt monumental ideas in your mind, engraving the grandest of quotes or etching cute phrases you cherish.  It can stomp inside your brain and stamp a deep set of tracks, embedding the footprints of indelible pictures and notions.

~ from The Strange Tail Of Oddzilla

The fiends dubbed him Brothy and Stewy, Chowder and Gumbo.  Their taunting made him simmer, being of a sensitive nature, and he sloshed away in a lachrymose trail of despair.  Drop by drop, his sorrowful gait solidified.

~ from The Strange Tail Of Oddzilla

Oddzilla didn’t mean to upset the Moon.  He hadn’t realized that anyone else could have it more difficult than he did.  The lesson taught him to take nothing for granted.  And there were always lessons to be learned.  And some things happened for a reason.  And there weren’t silver linings behind every cloud; it might be the Moon.  And he wasn’t special, even if he stood out and was one of a kind.

~ from The Strange Tail Of Oddzilla

Some fables are told for the very young, while other tales are for the tall in age, and then there are stories that shoot for the years between, but this is for large and small and all the rest, as long as you have two ears.  Well, even one will do, or how about a pair of eyes?  A single orb would be fine, in fact.  Or at least a mind.  Everyone has a brain, right?  Unless you’re a scarecrow, I guess.  You’re not, are you?  I have nothing against scarecrows, regardless if you are or you aren’t one.  It’s hunky-dory and okey-dokey if strawfolks follow the best they can:  skipping and tripping.  But try not to rustle, it could distract.

Where was I?

Some stories are so short they fit neatly in your pocket like lint and spare buttons, or the mysterious white packets you should never consume.  They’re called pocketbooks.  This isn’t one of those.  Others develop teeth and nails and tails and flounce away to eat Pittsburgh!  This is that one — the story with an appetite.  We just don’t know for what . . . (It isn’t Pittsburgh.)

A note to children:

Unless an encyclopedia is your choice of a bedtime story, you probably won’t be able to read all of these words yet.  My advice is to keep trying until you can, like riding a bike.  Ask someone older and more experienced for help when you stumble or don’t understand.  Never give up!  It takes a lot of practice to read this well.  I will do my best to simplify and summarize it for you here and there, interpreting the gist.

For the youngest, listen as someone bigger tells you Oddzilla’s incredibly quirky “tail” (which is, in truth, the most normal thing about him) and enjoy what you may.  That is how stories were told before there were books — in other words and aloud.  Fairytales are still told by many different tongues.